Class 66 - a question of scale - and quality?

[Paul B]

Hi guys!

I have recently found a need (or should that be a 'want' - or even a 'reason to own'?  ) for a class 66 loco. However, I would prefer it in the European scale of 1/160. Looking at e-bay, the Japanese ones from Plaza Japan seem rather expensive when compared to those available from GF and Dapol.

So - first question - does anyone have any experience of the size difference between Japanese and British class 66's? Is the size noticeably different, or is it not too bad? (I have to admit that I don't even know whether the Kato 66's are 1/160 or 1/150!)

Second - if I do go for a British class 66, which is a better runner - the Graham Farish or the Dapol? 

[porkie]

Hi paul,

I have all 3 brands of class 66 farish, dapol and kato.

Their was an issue with some early batches of dapol 66's although i never had any probs with mine. Only had a split gear fault with one of my farish 66's. And no trouble at all with my kato 66.

Will post a pic off all 3 for you to compare.

Hope this helps

Porkie

[Maurits71]

I have quit a collection of class 66 and no problems at all with the farish or dapol ones, the farish ones are a bit heaver and stronger. no experience with Kato as it's a different scale.

would suggest not to buy from ebay or what ever as these are mostly the older batches which are poorer ( my experience and no offense to sellers ! )

best regards

M.

[MacRat]

Kato class 66 is to 1:160 scale. IMHO the size difference is very noticeable when used with 1:148 scale stock it just looks to small compared to prototype photos. To my notice Kato doesn't do British liveries.

I only have experience with Dapols DCC ready class 66. It's a bit on the light side and runs with some noise. I have mine running really slow and smooth with DCC. They were used heavily on modular meetings, not driven by me and not signalled by me. One decoder got burned but I don't think it was the loco but the continuous running and shunting for hours which includes random shorts on wrongly set points.

[porkie]

The freightliner is farish, DRS dapol.

The kato is 1:60 same as fleishmann and minitrix.  The technoligy on the kato was far better than the uk early batches of 66.

But cant fault the new farish and dapol stuff,  their development over the past 6yrs is brilliant.

[OwL]

I have no experience with the Kato version, however i have heard all positive things about it.
The Farish and Dapol are good quality, i own several of each, with the Farish version being better quality in my opinion, however split gears seem to be very common on these unfortunately.
You could always buy a cheap farish one. The fastline liveried version is available cheap on eBay at moment (£59.00) and you could get it resprayed into a euro liveried one. That way it wouldnt look small compared to other 66's.
You would have to change the buffers to a european rectangle type aswell. Dont forget that GBRF have just bought x3 surplus Dutch loco's which have been imported into the UK and were seen recently heading to Barrow Hill for 'Anglicising'. They are presently still in their Grey Euro livery.

[1whitemoor]

In my view, the newer Dapol ones win - detailed bogies and supercreep chassis

Paul A

[EtchedPixels]

If you need 1:160 then yes the size difference is noticable, in particular you lose the "toy train" look the continental 66s have against the other continental locos. It's also the only way to get continental liveries and the size probably means you can retro-fit the continental air-con blocks without it looking wrong.

There are 3 versions of the 1:148 RTR (plus older Silver Fox and CJM kit/special order stuff)

Dapol original - not DCC ready, day/night light on bottom, mechanism is noisy and while it can be made to run well - out of the box it generally didn't.

Farish - much poorer roof detail, better bogies, wires for DCC but no socket, some versions split gears or have problems with the bogie drive. DCC conversion also needs some additional fixing because the motor feed tends to short the chassis so needs protecting.

Dapol later edition - bogies vastly improved, supercreep motor and an excellent chassis. DCC socket for easy conversion. IMHO by far the best of the three 1:148 releases. Also usually cheaper than the Farish one.

Alan

[Paul B]

Thanks for all the replies guys - great help as usual from here! 

I have just got a delivery of some books from friends in Poland (in return for me sending a kilt out to them before Christmas  don't ask!  ) and I was flicking though the one on Polish diesels and I saw a photo like this -

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Class_66_FPL66001.jpg

Now I didn't know that Freightliner operated in Poland, but apparently they have 7 class 66's out there, so there is another easy Polish loco I can get!  I was just worried about the size of the British scale loco against the European locos - but I would think that, as long as I don't use it with a Japanese class 66 I should be fine? And at least buying a British one it won't need a full respray - just a bit of a re-marking.

[EtchedPixels]

I think against another Polish loco it will look wrong - it'll look the same size rather than diminutive as it should.

There are some other Polish locos but not many

Fleischmann has covered the PKP Taurus loco in N, and a few other oddments (PKP coaches for the Berlin-Wasazawa" express). Hobbytrain the BR183.

[Paul B]

It is annoying that, to get a 'proper' European class 66, I would have to spend more money and still have to get it resprayed - whereas, to buy a Dapol Freightliner 66 I just need a slight re-marking!

I think against another Polish loco it will look wrong - it'll look the same size rather than diminutive as it should.

There are some other Polish locos but not many

Fleischmann has covered the PKP Taurus loco in N, and a few other oddments (PKP coaches for the Berlin-Wasazawa" express). Hobbytrain the BR183.

I so far have 4 potential loco's for my future Polish layout, although all are needing more or less painting to make them right - diesels; a Russian class M62 (Polish class ST44), a Russian class TEM2 (ex-American class RSD1 - Polish class SM48) and steam; a German class 52 (Polish class Ty1) and a German class 28 (Polish class Ok1) so I am getting there!  I do like the Taurus and the class BR183, but didn't plan on installing catenary on my layout (at least not to start with!) so they may come along later.

[MacRat]

The European class 66 have different headlight configurations too. There is no such thing like day or night headlights like in UK.

Regarding size, this picture shows the difference in size quite well: http://www.tram-und-bahnbilder.de/img6671.htm. These are EWS class 66 sitting in Guben/Germany on their way to Poland. The size difference to the class 232 diesel on the front is quite noticeable. The EWS locos got re-liveried in to DB Schenker. They are working in the Krakow area: http://www.bahnbilder.de/bild/Polen~Dieselloks~Class%2066/594028/db-schenker-rail-polska-class66-in.html

The class 232 on the front looks to be an "East-West-Railway" loco like this one: http://www.bahnbilder.de/name/einzelbild/number/263671/kategorie/Polen~Unternehmen~East-West-Railways.html . EWR is a German-Polish company by DB Schenker and PCC Rail. You could add this to your fleet as well.

The FPL class 66 also run into Germany. This one looks like it has modified LED Wipac lights: http://www.bahnbilder.de/bild/Deutschland~Dieselloks~Loks+aus+dem+Ausland+-allgemein-/616458/die-polnische-fpl-mit-ihrer-lok.html


Edit: regarding class 232 you could just get away with a German red livery loco with new decals like this example: http://www.bahnbilder.de/bild/Polen~Dieselloks~BR+232/654162/meg-314-ex-232-239-war.html
There other color variants available too, see http://www.bahnbilder.de/name/galerie/kategorie/Polen~Dieselloks~BR+232.html

[Paul B]

Thanks for the information MacRat - and the picture links! Didn't realise that there was such a size difference between the 66 and other European diesels!  Oh well - I will just have to save up and get a proper Kato class 66 - just may not be as soon as I could have afforded a Dapol one! 

[MacRat]

How about this one from amazon.de, only 1 in stock left though: http://www.amazon.de/dp/B0019MUSSM/?smid=A1OBA1KD6NO82J&tag=mainseek-new-21&linkCode=asn&creative=6742&camp=1638&creativeASIN=B0019MUSSM&ascsubtag=Qr5y8X4jThFLfLFxMX5OxA

This would be about 83 GBP.


edit: what I wanted to say is, if you shop around they're can be found cheaper.

[Paul B]

Yes - that is a whole lot cheaper!